Opening Eleven Eleven, the bi-annual publication of California College of the Arts’ MFA program, is like diving into an art-filled swimming pool on a hot day—both calming and invigorating. At first glance, the masterful layout and attention to the details of book-making (margins, font, and so forth) makes the magazine look rich and inviting. It is highly visual, as befits a publication from an art school, and features a full color portfolio in the middle pages. Each piece has a setting that suits the content, no matter how difficult or unusual.

The editorial staff also seems ready to take risks with the material they include. This journal has it all. The table of contents alone runs to three pages, double-columned, and there are almost one hundred contributors. This makes for a complex weave of styles and forms, running to over two hundred fifty pages. Just when I thought the stories, poems, plays, translations, reviews, and criticism had covered just about every hill and dale of the literary landscape, I would turn the page and find something new.

One of the longer pieces is an excerpt from an upcoming volume of the letters of Larry Eigner to the editor and publisher Jonathan Williams. They are held in the archive of the Jargon Society at the Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University of Buffalo. In the textual introduction, Andrew Rippeon explicates the difficulties inherent in trying to render these letters and postcards in a way that is true to the original, while keeping them readable, thus weighing in on the importance of syntax and typography in the study of poetry. Another interesting excerpt is from a new translation by Canadian poet Jeremy Dodds of The Poetic Edda, just out from Coach House Books. These Icelandic tales are masterpieces of mythological literature, and have influenced many authors, especially Tolkien.

These excerpts point to the seriousness of intent practiced by Eleven Eleven, but I don’t want to give the impression that it is a scholarly publication, or stuffy in any way. There is also quite a bit of narrative, most notably for me "The Emily Ice" by Melanie Westerberg. This story uses elements of magic realism and is fabulist in its premise (it concerns a girl literally made out of ice, and her suicide by melting), and, at the same time, is a realistic first-person narrative about a younger cousin idolizing her elder and wanting her constant attention.

On the humorous side, "The EODs" by Candra Kolodziej muses about a possible end-of-days existence in a bookstore after the people outside have disappeared.

There is also much poetry, including many prose-poems and longer selections, such as "Deep Pocket Din" by Ken Babcock, which is also part of a longer book just out from Coach House Books, On Malice. His use of language and images is highly personal, and shows off an apocalyptic imagination. In fact, there is a subtle end-of-the-world urgency in many of the selections in the volume, almost constituting a theme.

It is unfortunate that there is neither the time nor space to mention each piece of writing in this collection, as they are all uniformly excellent. If I have any complaint about this volume, it is that the shorter poetry sometimes gets overwhelmed by the sheer volume represented. I found myself at one point wondering if I had skipped pages, and had to backtrack to make sure I had read every poem, even though each poet’s voice was distinct. It was just that twenty or thirty pages of one short poem on a page can be a bit of a maze. On the other hand, it is obvious that much care went into the placement of each piece, so that they flow seamlessly from one to the next. Artwork in black and white is woven throughout, adding texture to the mix.

As you might guess, most of the contributors to Eleven Eleven #17 have been published before, and many are well-known literary figures with multiple books to their name. Many of the contributors are active in more than one medium—spoken word, theater, or music. The submission guidelines call for “daring and insightful” submissions. They only read two hundred pieces per issue, which speaks to the rarefied atmosphere of the journal. Submission is electronically through their website, starting in January. That gives you time to polish your best experimental piece and make it beautiful.